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U.S. Marines Urinate On Dead Bodies In Afghanistan

Dpetty said:
So your grandstanding and advocating for terrorist rights? Who was it that made that post about the people that spit on the Marines when they were returning from Vietnam (my dad was one of those Marines by the way)? Cause that sounds a lot like what you are doing.
We see who the dead were. They were humans. Humans who held no value for human life. They didnt value OUR lives, their WIVES lives, they didnt even value THEIR own lives. Why should we in turn defend them and mourne what happened to them?

I think Mufasa said it best when he said yada yada yada, something about staying out of the shadowy place, oh ya "its the circle of life".

Liberals dont care about a human embryo but they raise hell over a dead terrorist.
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Nice straw men arguments. Care to address mine instead?
 
Dpetty said:
Did you read the comment i was replying to?? We already agree their actions were innappropriate, Redress said:



That, to me sounds like she is defending the terrorists and lobbying on their behalf. She gives no credit to the work the Marines were doing that brought the terrorists to be dead at their feet in the first place. This isnt pointing out their actions, they have already been pointed out. This is something else entirely
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Then you are not understanding my comments.
 
Redress said:
Nice straw men arguments. Care to address mine instead?
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Well, i did admit that i didnt understand what your argument was in the first place, then i asked for clarification. So as soon as you lay it out for me, i will either agree with you, or address it.
 
Redress said:
What people are failing to see is that who the dead where, and what things the Taliban have done are entirely irrelevant. However, people pointing out that the act was inappropriate and bad is not blowing things out of proportion. It is things like the US reaction which we can point to as examples of why we are better than other countries.
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No reasonable person is saying that the act was appropriate or good. I, for one, am not saying that pointing out that it was inappropriate or bad blows things out of proportion (in fact, I said it was bad). I have no problems condemning the behavior or with Clinton/Panetta saying "“it is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel.” or the idea that the behavior was "deplorable".

But, when Clinton said “Anyone found to have participated or known about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable.” she (perhaps intentionally) left the door wide open for interpretation. It's been called "inhumane" (ironic) and "inexcusable". And, Panetta has said ""Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent." (Less open for interpretation, and much stronger language).

I am concerned that we train our young men to fortify their own emotions enough to seek to kill another person, but then will hang the same young men out to dry for their lack of reverence. Punish to some extent? - Yes. Punish to the fullest extent? - No.
 
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Dpetty said:
Are you just trying to get everyone to agree that peeing on a terrorist (live, dead, or stuffed, preferably stuffed for safety sake) is worse than killing said terrorist?
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Where did I say that? And I will keep repeating my actual argument when people learn it.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Where did I say that? And I will keep repeating my actual argument when people learn it.
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Im gonna have to remove myself from this conversation then, cause it really seems to me that EVERYONE agrees this was a dumb dumb moment for the marines and they should not have been done what they did.
At this point i think people are arguing over the APPROPRIATE level of disdain we should be showing... Some say more, some say to less, but really, that is a dumb thing to argue about.
If there is anyone here who is trying to make a different point within the last few pages, they havent done a very good job of putting their thoughts across.
 
MaggieD said:
Yes, you're right. I went back early on in the thread a moment ago and see that Haymarket brought that up early on. You call their actions "gratuitous and unprofessional." I agree. I don't agree with comparing them to torture, calling them atrocious, horrific, etc. Haymarket, Greenville, MadLib and others, including myself, see the irony of caring more about soldiers pissing on a dead body than actually killing them. Not a valid point to you? Okay.

As I said, this irony will resonate with some posters and not others.
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Who compared them to torture?

Also, it would be ironic if the subject were general morality or care for humanity. It's not. Moreover, the flawed logic rests on the premise that people do actually care more about soldiers pissing on a dead body than killing. That premise is probably false for a lot of people.
 
Dpetty said:
At this point i think people are arguing over the APPROPRIATE level of disdain we should be showing... Some say more, some say to less, but really, that is a dumb thing to argue about.
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Yeah, the problem with this is that one side is attributing a certain level of disdain (and terrorist sympathizing) to the other side that doesn't actually exist. When people understand that, the problem will be solved.
 
I think what most people are trying to say is that yea, they probably shouldn't have done that, if for any reason for the image of the Marines as a unit and the USA as a country.

However, when was the last time you heard disdain about the Viet Kong (sp?) killing Americans, cutting off the penises and stuffing them into their mouths while their bodies were tied to a tree? I mean c'mon. War is ugly. Soldiers do bad things. But peeing on a dead body? Really?

What about the 3 links in that guys post about the Chinese burning Americans bodies and such? I mean where is uproar? Why are there seemingly more Americans willing to stand up for the dead bodies of TERRORISTS than for them to stand up for the rights of our own citizens not to be attacked on our own homeland by these people?
 
Ok, impromptu poll for those who've commented: If non-military punishment ranges in severity from jaywalking to per-meditated murder, where does this offense rate?
My examples (subject to interpretation and feel free to use your own):
Jaywalking
Speeding
Public intoxication
Drunk and disorderly
Driving while intoxicated
Vandalism
Petty Larceny
Grand theft
Domestic abuse
Assault
Battery
Vehicular manslaughter
Manslaughter
Murder
Pr-meditated murder

On my list, I'd rate this somewhere in the range of vandalism, larceny or maybe grand theft (give or take). What about you?
 
bicycleman said:
Then you must think it equally disgusting when Somalians dragged the naked and battered bodies of American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu.
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And why do you remember the soldiers who were killed in Mogadishu? I mean there have been thousands of young American GIs killed in the Middle East but why does Mogadishu stand out so much?
 
GreenvilleGrows said:
No reasonable person is saying that the act was appropriate or good. I, for one, am not saying that pointing out that it was inappropriate or bad blows things out of proportion (in fact, I said it was bad). I have no problems condemning the behavior or with Clinton/Panetta saying "“it is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel.” or the idea that the behavior was "deplorable".

But, when Clinton said “Anyone found to have participated or known about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable.” she (perhaps intentionally) left the door wide open for interpretation. It's been called "inhumane" (ironic) and "inexcusable". And, Panetta has said ""Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent." (Less open for interpretation, and much stronger language).

I am concerned that we train our young men to fortify their own emotions enough to seek to kill another person, but then will hang the same young men out to dry for their lack of reverence. Punish to some extent? - Yes. Punish to the fullest extent? - No.
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It is one of the 10 commandments of military service: "thou shalt not create bad publicity for your command, your branch of service, nor your country". That is why it is fullest extent. No public disclosure, 30/30. Public, international incident, full extent.

A story from when I served. In Dubai where the port was they had literally thousands of small pickups waiting to go to Kuwait when it was fully liberated and ready for them(ford pickups to be exact). One night while in port, 3 sailors, while very drunk, decided they wanted to go for a joyride. They went and looked at the pickups and discovered they where unlocked, keyed where in them, and they had full tanks of gas. Off joyriding they went. Now normally, drunk driving would be handled at the command level and usually result in 30/30 or 60/60 and alcohol rehab(I forget what the navy program was called). In this case, since they had created an international incident, it went to court martial and they all got BCDs. The whole reason for the court martial and BCDs was it was bad publicity and an international incident.
 
I'll try to keep it simple. What the defenders don't seem to be getting is that the bad guys are the bad guys because they do stuff like this. We are the good guys partly because we don't do stuff like this. Yes, we go to war, supposedly if there's no other option, and we do it committedly and efficiently and retain our morality by setting minimum standards of behaviour for ourselves, and by not behaving like the bad guys do. Why bother if our only standard is that we're not QUITE as bad as them? That's a weasel argument.
 
GreenvilleGrows said:
Ok, impromptu poll for those who've commented: If non-military punishment ranges in severity from jaywalking to per-meditated murder, where does this offense rate?
My examples (subject to interpretation and feel free to use your own):
Jaywalking
Speeding
Public intoxication
Drunk and disorderly
Driving while intoxicated
Vandalism
Petty Larceny
Grand theft
Domestic abuse
Assault
Battery
Vehicular manslaughter
Manslaughter
Murder
Pr-meditated murder

On my list, I'd rate this somewhere in the range of vandalism, larceny or maybe grand theft (give or take). What about you?
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Does not work that way. In all of those cases factors like prior record, the specifics of the case, how badly the command or branch wants to rehabilitate the soldier versus get rid of him.
 
dontworrybehappy said:
I think what most people are trying to say is that yea, they probably shouldn't have done that, if for any reason for the image of the Marines as a unit and the USA as a country.
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Agreed.

However, when was the last time you heard disdain about the Viet Kong (sp?) killing Americans, cutting off the penises and stuffing them into their mouths while their bodies were tied to a tree? I mean c'mon. War is ugly. Soldiers do bad things. But peeing on a dead body? Really?
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Vietnam was a long time ago. I can't imagine people would rehash that over and over again except in history classes.

What about the 3 links in that guys post about the Chinese burning Americans bodies and such? I mean where is uproar? Why are there seemingly more Americans willing to stand up for the dead bodies of TERRORISTS than for them to stand up for the rights of our own citizens not to be attacked on our own homeland by these people?
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Three points:

1. In my experience, most people find violent acts pretty despicable in general.

2. In my experience, most Americans think violent actions of our enemies against Americans are personally despicable.

3. In my experience, most people have high expectations for their military and when they are disappointed, as in this case, they react accordingly. You are putting the emphasis on the wrong thing when you accuse people of "standing up for the dead bodies of terrorists" because nobody is doing that. What we're standing up for is the idea that Americans don't do what the enemy expects us to and what we would not tolerate the enemy doing to our own soldiers.
 
MaggieD said:
Oh, come on. The fact is no one on this post has complained about them killing them. No one's said, as you just did, "Very big no-no." No one has called killing them atrocious or deplorable or wrong or (pick-your-adjective). Greenville is correct. The only problem we seem to have is their actions afterwards. If that doesn't make one stop and think how we value lives in war, well...
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I think what Redress is saying is please QUOTE them NOT complaining about killing them. :lamo
 
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GreenvilleGrows said:
Ok, impromptu poll for those who've commented: If non-military punishment ranges in severity from jaywalking to per-meditated murder, where does this offense rate?
My examples (subject to interpretation and feel free to use your own):
Jaywalking
Speeding
Public intoxication
Drunk and disorderly
Driving while intoxicated
Vandalism
Petty Larceny
Grand theft
Domestic abuse
Assault
Battery
Vehicular manslaughter
Manslaughter
Murder
Pr-meditated murder

On my list, I'd rate this somewhere in the range of vandalism, larceny or maybe grand theft (give or take). What about you?
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It actuality - Drunk & Disorderly, but the reality is these Marines will get the Pre-Meditated murder wrap and if they plea, will get Manslaughter because of all the faux outrage over a mole hill moment. The numbskull who posted this on YouTube should be sterilized (I'm saying that metaphorically), as that kind of stupid should not reproduce.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
LOL, she wasn't advocating that anyone NOT support the military over the Taliban. So many strawmen, so little time.
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You know what annoyed me most about her post? The use of the term "our boys" as if we're on the same side of something. Clearly we're not. I'm just saying, I know whose side I'm on.
 
X Factor said:
You know what annoyed me most about her post? The use of the term "our boys" as if we're on the same side of something. Clearly we're not. I'm just saying, I know whose side I'm on.
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If you're insinuating the age-old canard that Serenity is somehow a terrorist-supporter or an "enemy-supporter," then that is one big huge ****ing gigantic straw man.
 
Captain America said:
War is hell. If you ain't fighting it, have a nice hot cup of shut the **** up.
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Running the country is hell. If you ain't doing it, have a nice hot cup of shut the **** up and don't criticize any presidents.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Running the country is hell. If you ain't doing it, have a nice hot cup of shut the **** up and don't criticize any presidents.
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You're true colors are showing... censorship for all who don't agree eh?. :applaud
 
Ockham said:
You're true colors are showing... censorship for all who don't agree eh?. :applaud
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Isn't that exactly what's happening with all the folks who are saying "You've never put on a uniform so therefore your opinion means jack ****"? It's just another way to suppress dissenting opinion :shrug: TPD was merely pointing out an analogous situation.
 
StillBallin75 said:
Isn't that exactly what's happening with all the folks who are saying "You've never put on a uniform so therefore your opinion means jack ****"? It's just another way to suppress dissenting opinion :shrug: TPD was merely pointing out an analogous situation.
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Absolutely not - it means they have no frame of reference to know what these men are going through and their comments therefore are premature and uninformed. In NO WAY is it "If you've never been a combat soldier have a nice hot cup of shut the **** up and don't criticize any Marines". No one is saying that ... what I and others have said is that we believe what was done was wrong, we don't endorse it, but we understand. Even I, who was never in combat, at least can understand.
 
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